COTABATO CITY (MindaNews / 19 February) – From the island to the mainland, Sherhan Isa endured the long, backbreaking travel from Jolo, Sulu to be in solidarity with the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP), the political party of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), during its general assembly in Cotabato City on Saturday, February 17.
Isa, 36, a seaweeds trader and a non-combatant MILF member, boarded a ferry in Jolo at 8 p.m. on February 13 and arrived in Zamboanga City at six in the morning the following day. He spent two days there along with some 300 UBJP members from Sulu.
The ferry ride costs P1,200 per head.
On Friday morning, February 16, the group, headed by UBJP Sulu chapter chair Cesar Alil, rented 40 vans in Zamboanga City, each carrying eight to ten persons only, so they could be seated comfortably during the 10-hour ride to Cotabato City to attend the first general assembly of UBJP on Saturday.
The Sulu delegation arrived in Cotabato City, the seat of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), on Friday evening.
Isa said each one of them paid for their own expenses worth at least P5,000, inclusive of the return trip to Jolo.
“Ang P5,000 ay malaking amount na at mahirap kitain (P5,000 is a big amount and difficult to earn),” he told MindaNews. “But we saved for it because we believe in the principles of UBJP. We came here to show our solidarity with the party even if the cost hurts our pockets.”
For Isa, the UBJP “is a party that promotes peace and development” that in turn leads to opportunities for residents to live better lives or create better communities.
Ahod “Al Haj Murad” Ebrahim, the MILF chair, was re-elected as UBJP president.
Ebrahim is concurrently the Chief Minister of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), the MILF-dominated 80-member Parliament appointed by the President of the Philippines to govern the BARMM during the transition period that began in 2019, was supposed to end on June 30, 2022 but extended to June 30, 2025.
The BTA ceases to function on June 30, 2025 and the first elected Bangsamoro Parliament members will take over to run the autonomous region, the lone region in the country that adopts a parliamentary system of governance.
In his address to the thousands who gathered at the Cotabato State University Oval for the UBJP General Assembly, Ebrahim said their party is a “principled political party” that will participate in next year’s first Bangsamoro parliamentary election with a platform centered on “justice and moral governance.”
“Looking back in our 50 years of struggle (for self-determination), there is no doubt the Bangsamoro people know how to choose the right leaders. May this continue in the May 2025 (parliamentary election),” he said in Filipino.
The Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, the peace agreement inked by the Philippine government and the MILF in 2014 after 17 years of negotiations, paved the way for the creation of the BARMM.
Isa said the BARMM is better than its predecessor, the defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, because it is more inclusive and has a more diverse representation.
Isa is praying for the UBJP to win majority seats in the coming parliamentary election so that the strides achieved by the Bangsamoro transition government and the gains of the peace process will be sustained.
Hadji Ismael Pajiji of Sibutu, Tawi-Tawi, a relative of the mayor of Sibutu, heads the UBJP chapter in Sibutu. He placed the round-trip expenses at P15,000.
He and his delegation traveled to Bongao, the capital town of Tawi-Tawi and from there to Zamboanga and joined the others from Tawi-Tawi for the day-long land trip to this city on Friday.
“The UBJP is well-placed in Tawi-Tawi with the 11 towns all having municipal UBJP chapters,” he said.
A delegation from Basilan also came to attend the assembly. Basilan Governor Jim Hataman Salliman sent a representative to the activity.
Engr. Mohajirin Ali, UBJP information officer, said they have exceeded the 10,000 target participants, with an emcee announcing at 10:40 a.m. Saturday that the attendance reached “20,000 plus.”
“The 20,000 figure is based on the attendance sheets that participants filled up at the venue,” he said in a phone interview Monday.
But based on a MindaNews photo taken at 10:35 a.m. from atop a school building as Ebrahim was delivering his President’s Report, the oval was not even half-filled with people.
According to the crowd-counting app MapChecking, the oval should be full for a 20,000 crowd estimate, at two people per square meter.
During Saturday’s general assembly, the sun was scorching and there were attendees seen taking shelter under the trees or in school buildings, aside from those accommodated in the packed tents and the grandstand.
Asked how much the party spent to hold the event, Ali could not immediately provide the figure.
But he noted that “many voluntarily came using their own money,” as that had been the “norm of their supporters or members in the past assemblies of the MILF.”
Mohagher Iqbal, UBJP executive vice president, recognized the sacrifices made by those from afar to join the party’s first general assembly.
Addressing the crowd on Saturday, Iqbal said he knows it has not been easy for them to have traveled from places so far from here. “Dagat, bundok at mahabang kalupaan ang tinahak ninyo upang makadalo lamang sa pagtitipon na ito. Yung iba baka nahirapan pa maghanap ng panggastos niya at yung maiiwan sa pamilya” (The seas, mountains and the vast expanse of land did not deter you from coming over. Others may have found it difficult to find money for the travel expenses and what they would leave for their families while they are away), he said.
Baibon Masulot, a resident of the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area in Midsayap, North Cotabato, said she joined the UBJP because “I want to help BARMM succeed.”
A member of the UBJP since five years ago, Masulot expressed hope the party will win majority seats in the coming parliamentary election.
The 80-member BTA has 41 members from the MILF and 39 nominated by government.
Under the Bangsamoro Electoral Code, voters will troop to the polls in May 2025 to elect 80 members of Parliament. The Parliament comprises 40 party representatives, 32 district representatives and eight sectoral representatives. (Bong S. Sarmiento / MindaNews)